marvin olasky. if you'd like to purchase a copy of the book they are available outside and marvin will stay on the stage for signing them. .. >> this is a book about a shy

boy growing up in alabama, overcoming polio inspired by henry clay at the university of louisville to become a senator the majority leader of the united states senatee mitch, when i have a confession to make i was asked to do this this is what i thought. how can anyone i get mitch mcconnell to talk g for an hour. [laughter] but you point out you only speak to the press when it's to your advantage. when bill gates came in to see if you and you guys just sat there waiting for one of you to speak and youou recount someone once told president george w. bush that you were excited over a certain though

and said really how can you tell. >> i'm not afraid of talking but i find i learn a lot more by listeningfo. 's are frequently a start off by listening and then think about what i want to say before i do. it's fair to say that in the era of trump i'm probably very different in my approach to comment on public affairs. >> you're not the first one the late bob novak used to say the hardest interview he ever had on meet the press with senator mansfield he would answer a question and say yes or no and he ran out of questions. but easiest was humphrey and he would talk for 30 minutes. >> there is nothing wrong with being cautious.

and to know what i'm talking about before i ventured down that path so there is a lot of unexpected material. this fight with dickie mcgrew. and then when it gets to professor obama and the counterpart and the senate conservative, and most people would be surprised with university of louisville andf we talk about that. 1944 you are two years old living with your mom in alabama and the doctor, your dad is overseas in the war and the doctor says mitch has polio. it must've been so terrifying. >> absolutely and i

subsequently learned an academic all over the country the disease is very unpredictable you thank you had the flu and then a few weeks later some would be completely normal oror some would be dead echo in my case it affected my quadriceps the muscle between your knee and your thigh. and one of the great good fortunes of my life, this little crossroads not even a stoplight there my mother was living with her sister while my dad was overseas fighting the germans and 60 miles from warm springs but roosevelt having gone there himself in the twenties because he had

polio. he was completely paralyzed below the waist. >> but your mother may not know if you would be like the president. >> not completely but the worst-case scenario for me would be a brace on my left leg. i didn't have asen severe a case as president roosevelt but but i'm two years old. you know what m kids are like my mom took me to the warm springs and told her to administer four times a day and to keep me f off my feet. so she had to watch me like a hawk for two years every waking moment and try to convey the subtle message that

i could walk but i shouldn't. >> how do you keep a two -year-old quick. >> that's what two -year-olds do. >> she watch me every minute and prevent me from prematurely walking. obviously she told me that years later my first memory in life was the warm springs where they told my mother that i would be okay and i could walk without a limp and we stopped at a shoe store on the way back and that was a symbol i would have a normal childhood. this went on for two years. >> you have a chapter in your book called resilience in the impressions made on us at an early age as significant as

people think that if you stick to something you keep working at it and chances are you may overcome whatever problem currently. >> you have an impediment quick. >> my quadricep is harder going downstairs than up i'm notad great at going downstairs but i've had a perfectly normal life when i was a kid i couldn't run long distances. it doesn't have the back and forth like basketball. >> your father encouraged you to have a fistfight with dickie mcgrew. >> he did encourage me i had no choice perk i was about seven we lived in athens alabama and i had a friend across the street who was a year older than ist was. he was also a bully and kept pushing me around.

my dad was working in the yard one day and he saw that and called me over and said son, i have been watching the way he's pushing youou around i want you to beat him up and i said he's older than i am so giving the opposite choice i went across the street and started swinging it was an incredible lilesson and i thought about that throughout my life at critical moments when people try toou push you around. >> so jump ahead to the university of louisville people may wonder what the senators talk about when they are on the floor but they are watching you talk about the university of louisville sports book but before i get

to that, your honors thesis was henry clay and that inspired you to be a united states senator. >> i got into politics and ranli for the student body in high school. and it was a very contentious race. i want. [laughter] so i began to follow politics. i remember at age 14 when the coverage of convention would focus on the podium to listen to all the speeches on tv. >> or a big zenith radio and we would sit and listen to the whole thing. >> i thought i was only 14 -year-oldd in america. [laughter]

maybe you are watching to. and t watching gavel to gavel to practicece this craft to see if i could get good at it. and then ran for president of student council in college and law school and clay was the most famous politician in kentucky. >> what about clay inspired you the most? >> maybe not an insignificant state from the kentucky people so i wanted to learn more abouttnt him. >> but he was known for crafting compromises which is a dirty word for some people. >> it is absolutely essential and you and i and our daily

lives every single day to make the senate function. so i did my senior thesis on 1850 and with the politicians there is another aspect describe your tailgating schedule so football is an important part of life we have 12 season tickets per year. and then the occasional away game. and then to talk about what we did do the i game.

with a lengthy exercise. >> talk about the early 19 sixties, you and i both drove to washington we both realized in a green mustang you worked for senator cook i worked for senator baker and senator baker said you need to go over and meet that sat on - - that legislative aide mitch mcconnell. but let's go back to louisville. you had march on the capital of civil rights. you were in washington as i was to hear mlk speech the i have a dreamam h speech. and have goldwater come speak

that you voted for johnson in 1964. what happened. >> and this is the defining issue and 62 to be fortunate enough that goldwater accepted an invitation but in 63, the summer of 63 we got to see the i have a dream speech and then i was an intern and then two things happened and 64. the filibuster of the civil rights bill and then we nominated barry goldwater one of the few o people from the civil rights bill. honestly i was mad as hell about it and i was sot. irritated about goldwater voting against the civil rights bill and defining the arepublican party in a way that i voted for lyndon johnson

which in retrospect was a huge mistake. [laughter]akak but it was a protest vote. >> that feeling carried over senate days when president reagan vetoed the sanctions on south africa for apartheid you voted to override the veto. most republicans did not do. >> i felt reagan was simply wrong about whether or not the south africa sanctions could work people say sanctions never work but occasionally they do they worked in south africa and in burma and i felt reagan was wrong and i did

override the veto. >> how did you get interested cracks that was an extraordinary thing lasting over 20 years i remember you standing up making speeches and i wondered what you were doing. >> i started to follow her after she won the nobel peace prize in 91. her father was the founder of modern burma that didn't live very long because he was assassinated so she went off to europe and went to school in the united states and married a guy from britain and went back to burma 1988 to care for her sick mother when the movement started. and she was thrust into the leadership which had run to the country since the early

sixties to decide to have a free and fair election. and the reaction was to arrest all the people who got elected and put her under house arrest in her own house where she would remain mostly for the next 21 years so we would flip notes to each other and often with others the distinction bills but ultimately that made a differencerm. >> you visited her not long ago? >> amazingly enough the regime began to crumble in 2011. so then we could talk on the phone. and i actually went to burma january 2012 and i got to see her in person and invite her to come to the mcconnell center and she did come

september 2012 and now she is the de facto leadership of the country even though the cost of - - constitution prohibits anyone that's been married to aer foreigner to become president. she is de facto and has put in a president who is a close allyly. >> you mentioned the mcconnell center at louisville what is that? >> it is a scholarship program for the best and brightest kids i started 25 years ago you have to be from kentucky and there are tentu freshmen of each grade each year. it is designed to try to compete with ivy league schools and to get sharper kids to stay in kentucky for education. if they stay there they are

more likely to stay there after school. 70 percent of the graduates have chosen to stay in kentucky but most go off to the east and never come back so i bring in speakers and we've had a great bunch over the years hillary clinton was there while she was there secretary of state and joe biden was there and chief justice roberts not just the speaker but then they address the larger public audience while they are there. >> let's switch to politics you are undefeated you have 16 races in kentucky and primary so let's talk about the first i think all of us in the united states senate are a political accident we will not admit it but you surely were. thirty points behind. >> in the election year.

>> it was a desperate situation roger ailes who is now well known. in those days he was doing politicalli consulting. >> he was willing to take somebody 30 points behind? >> he had some clients and thought we would win that year and he had me. i appreciated the fact he was willing to take me on but this is a tough competitor. you can see how he started fox for rupert murdoch. here is the situation. [laughter] july of the election. >> 1984 down 34 points. we had a meeting in louisville and i said roger is this race over? he set up never known to come from this far behind this late and win but i don't think it's over. very competitiveit guy i was

running against a pretty smart democratic incumbent who didn't have obvious vulnerabilities o we were looking for some kind of issue like a needle in a haystack and it turned out i had no problem with people making speeches for money but he had while he was on the senate floor. so ailes turn that into a couplee of ads like a kentucky hunter type person with bloodhounds looking to get back to work and it electrified the campaign and got people talking about it and then there was a sequel later and look like they were chased by the dogs and ended up in a tree but the key line is we've got you now.

not exactly a landslide. >> that one way of looking at a 49 out of 50 states he was the only democratic incumbent center that year to lose. >> they will say to find a method of campaigning. >> yet the conservatives coming from the right it was a pretty big brawl and to call the republican opponent. >> you and i witness the result results.

>> it basically cost us five races and 2012 by nominating people who could not win. so in 2014 i said were not going to allow that to happen anymore. 's and not only in my race but other races around theac country we got the most electable people nominated because if you deal with the bunch of people who always want to make a point but never want to make a difference the only thing to do to win the election is to beat them so we want every primary including my own and as you indicated to be elected governor of kentucky but in my prairie primary carried t

to. >> it's like your fist fight with dickie. t[laughter] >> one of your top aides said this in 2013 the senate conservatives are wandering around the country destroying the republican party the difference this cycle is a stolen to mitch mcconnell's barn he will lock the door. those are tight words. >> that is what needed to be done. and as a result if you look at 2014 that is the approachh not only my race but several others. we took the senate back. te had the most electable candidates on the ballot everywhere. >> talk about the senate democratic leader henry weed on - - and reread we went to the funeral a few days ago and you spoke that people think

mitch mcconnell and i don't like each other but we are good friends and you say you are friends with harry reid but then you say he has a personality that he says you are classless and and you say not in your book but other places he may be the worst majority leader so if a son is the place of relationships what about between the democratic and republican leader cracks are you friends or not? >> i've been very public a couple of things about harry. number one i did not like the wayhe he shut the senate down to prevent people from voting for i don't like the way he ran the senate. and i think his public rhetoric is frequently very inappropriate.

>> like what? >> the example you just mentioned he said all of donald trump's outrageous comments and attributed them toed me. i don't do that to him. i don't think there is the equivalence but nevertheless a lot of people dispute all the time we have to talk on a daily basis i do vehemently object to the way he ran the nasenate and my goal in the current majority is to be different in every way of harry and the way he ran the previous majority. trying to do everything totallyec different i don't object the way he ran the senate but i do object to the rhetoric like calling alan greenspan a political hack he may be many things but a political hack he certainlyly isn't or george w. bush a

loser or the iraq war is lost in the middle of a major military exercise. i cannot fail to express my objection to that kind of rhetoric which is frequently flat out wrong. >> let's take one other person the senate conservativeve fund you write about senator reid and you have a chapter entitled professor obama why did you choose that? >> the president is a very smart guy. he knows a lot about a lot of things. i think he would do a better job of dealing with others if he spent less time to acquaint whoever he is talking to at moment with his brilliance and more time listening. there is a strong contrast with the president of i.c.e. land i have been in some major deals with the vice president

and they were worth doing for the country. he doesn't spend any time of convincingly of things that he knows and i don't spend time convincing him things he doesn't. we don't waste time on that we get down to figure out what we can do together because he knows how far i can go. the president is a brilliant guy he is successful in his political career and raising quickly to the top in american politics but i don't think that these incessant lectures are helpful if you are in some kind of negotiation. >> let's talk about the divided government to say the disappointment that you have not been able to accomplish moreom together because divided government is when you do hard

things you spread responsibility around. now the democrats say about you that you said early on the main goal is to make president obama a one termsi president. and that it's time to go to work on entitlements and offer a hand and you never heard back. so whose fault is it to take advantage of the divided government? >> i have a point of view on that. i did admire bob woodward. but right after that in the meantime we have work to do and we have to look foror ways to work together that was stepped off by almost everyone

that the government is the only time you could do big transformative for example reagan and tip o'neill raise the ageil for social security that was the last comprehensive tax reform and the republican congress and welfare reform. big stuff but arguably none of that could've been done. unified and when it could not produce a big outcome george w. bush was just reelected 2004 and asked all of us to take care social security i spent one year to get any democrat, even lieberman the most reasonable democrat and the attitude was you have the white house we have the house you have the senate if you want to do something at social security you do it. t

so my big disappointment with barack obama that two things have to be done to save america. >> and that you have to change the eligibility of popular things like social security and medicare. . . . .

>> host: i suppose the best example of when we did do that was in civil rights in the 60s, and we both forgot. i remain her when i started working for everett baker, dirksen was the leader and for days around a big table senators came in and out as democrats and republicans worked together to see if they could get enough votes, 67 which is what it took to get cloture and they did that and johnson and dirksen did that together because of their special relationship and you ihave in your book senator john sherman cooper took you as a youngster to the signing of the voting rights act in 1965 and you had a conversation with president johnson'sat daughter, lucy.

i said we've never met, but i was in this very room in statuary hall when your dad signed the voting rights act of 1965. i said i'm sure everybody knew you were there but i was just in the back of the room and she said i will tell you why i was there. my dad said to me get in the car i'm taking you down to with this something important and explained on the way down why everett dirksen was going to be featured in his remarks. the reason, why would you have a republican mayor and she said. most of the republicans vote for it, but the nation will be more likely to accept it if they think we had done this together. in 20 of eight explainin 2008 es

there in 1965. how of course to do that, they had a relationship. his father-in-law took a phone call in his office and i did that last night and she's mad at me at about 30 minutes later there was a rustle outside and to be goals came in followed by ae president of the united states and the than johnson said if he won't come down and have a drink with me i am here to have one with you in the same office for the civil rights bill. so that relationship precedes the divided government. you alluded to this earlier you said your main goal was to restore the senate institution. you are something of a historian and getting your phd in history and went onto the floor and said

you wanted to run the senate the way mike mansfield ran whose the majority when you invite both can hear what did did you mean? >> guest: we talked about this in my critique first of all you have to open up the senate the last year the previous majority there were 15 roll call votes on amendments the entire year. the first year of the new majority that 200. when we talk about regular order which most people don't know what that means. it's worked on together and comes up from the floor with bipartisan support and has a better chance of success. the best example i can think of happens to be your bill that

completely rewrite the so-called no child left behind bill. it proved to be unworkable and unpopular and by the time you brought it out of committee you had the democrats and republicans lined up, taken to the floor relatively open for an event not that everybody got everything they wanted and in the end it passed with a large majority. we've done it time after time after time on this majority if there was trade promotion authority or the highway bill. comprehensive energy bill, cybersecurity, permanent internet tax moratorium. we hope to achieve something in the kennedy to the incredible cure that seemed to be just around the corner.

what does all of thi this housed men in a time of divided government we are focusing on the things that we can agree on because when people elect the divided government they are saying we have bi big differencs that what you look for the t things you agree on and do those and that is how this majority is different from the previous. >> host: it's important to say you have to do as johnson did with dirksen and give the other side credit. mymyre case fixing no child left behind never would have happened if pattyng murray hadn't been as interested in the result as i had. it's not a bad thing to give somebody else credit. usually it helps get you where you want to go. you came here 50 years ago. what is the most different about

the senate today "-end-quotes something that's the same? >> guest: when you and i first came to washington there were liberal republican and conservative democrats but to party labels they are more descriptive than america's two-party system. what isn't different there isn't as much animosity or unwillingness to work together asor is portrayed in the media.

people get hammered with what they teach in journalism school. the only bad news people are way more upset. they are legitimately upset about where they are in their lives and the fact thehe average american is 3,000 or $4,000 a year worse off today than they were when president obama came to office, so that is a legitimate complaint. i remember when i came to the senate having worked at it before, i knew what i was getting into, but i didn't realize what it was like to work in a body that operates by unanimous consent. most people don't realize you

are the majority leader but if they listened carefully on c-span you will end up at the end of the day asking the senate open tomorrow at 9:30 and we have a prayer and go to the bill and one senator objects, you have to start over. if you have to suggest a book to read about understanding the senate, do one or two come tone mind? mind? >> guest: the senate is ironically working up pretty much the way george washington predicted. according to legend, he was asked when he presided over the convention what do you think the senate will be like and he saidi he thought it would be like the saucer under the teacup and that he washed out of the cup onto the saucer to cool off. why did he say that?

i think on purpose the founders wanted the senate to be a place where the greeks could be flooded easily and then over the tears as you suggest the notion of unlimited debate empoweredba every single senator to have an impact. stepping back from the minutia what do people take away from the senate? it is a place to slow down and i fought over. >> host: the first chapter of the book ofpt lyndon johnson

mastered the senate is called the death of the senate and that strucke me. to move over to the other side to even it out to be a wonderful way to think about the way the place works. you were married and have three daughters, you were a bachelor than for 13 years and at the suggestion of a friend, you have your assistant telephone via system for the chairman of the federal maritime commission and that's how you met elaine chao that you're now married. that doesn't sound very romantic.

>> guest: i befriended a couple of people when i was a staffer in the senate and kept up with it over the years. i had been single for quite a while. i wanted to meet somebody new so i said do you know anybody knew it and she said i had a woman should meet and that is elaine chao was a classic example why we neve never want to totally cl immigration. >> host: till something about her family story. >> guest: her mom and dad when they were young they were dodging the japanese invasion and when they got to be a little bit older, there was the communist revolution. they separately managed to get out of them and china had to go

to taiwan. she searched in taiwan for two find her. they got married and had three daughters. my wife is the oldest that he was an ambitious young man and wanted to do better so he came to america for three years by himself worked multiple jobs trying to get a start in the shipping business. he'd been a captain and wanted to be more of that. for three years he worked with the poor jobs to get a start in cold for my late mother-in-law and three daughters to come over but they didn't have enough money for an airline ticket. they were the only people other than the crew and commodity. finally ended up in a small

apartment and he kept working and kept having kids. they ended upey with four daughters -- six daughters, four of whom went off to law school and he built a successful shipping business. that is the kind of story that you see all across america which is another w reason why even in moments where we are frustrated the sons and daughters are risk takers and this caused a process we have for the people that come here legally and want to accomplish and tend to be the best american. >> host: one living and the rest of the deceased, but the living one is john mccain.

you and he had a big brawl overy the first amendment. most people need not know that your first amendment view have to do with basically no limits on campaign finance disclosure and you voted against the amendment that would ban desecration of the american flag. john mccain disagreed with you and became feingold was long past. that was a pretty acrimonious battle. what is your relationship with john mccain today? >> very close. that is an example of being able to have a fight over issues that went on about ten years. it was really pretty stressful between us at various points, but i called him up the day after he won in the second quarter, one of the worst days

of my life actually was watching a republican house and republican senate and a republican president passed thea bill that i was opposed to become a deeply opposed to invite was the plaintiff at the supreme court, called him up the day after and i said congratulations, you won and i lost and we found about there were a lot of other things we could work on together and we became best friends and allies on a whole variety of different things and that is the way the senate ought to work and frequently it does. i'm not sure if many people from the public know that. >> do you consider john mccain an american hero? >> absolutely. >> i'd like to ask you to give me just one or two sentences about each of the following united states senators, all of them deceased. the first thing that comes to your mind about henry clay. >> guest: great compromise or. >> host: lyndon b. johnson. >> guest: as a senator? overrated. the master of the senate was mike mansfield.

>> host: mike mansfield. >> master of the senate. >> everett dirksen. >> indispensable player who knew when to pose and when to join up in the unsung hero of the civil rights movement. >> senator john sherman cooper of kentucky.to ed common great conviction, very smart. >> ted kennedy. >> guest: he was aligned in the senate as one of the many books about him have been written, and he roared, he and i both when he was passionate which he was about almost everything. but in many ways, i think the most accomplished kennedy, never got to be president, never was attorney general, but i think

that in almost every way the most accomplished kennedy. >> guest: certainlthis is certat accomplished senator that was a kennedy. we used to laugh with him about going toan the wing and dinners and all you have to do is mention ted kennedy is dinner to fire up the crowd. when i made my first speech on the senate floor about american history, he came over unsolicited, took m my build abt 20 democratic cosponsors within a day. he knew exactly how to make the senate were. senator robert byrd. >> could well have been the senate historian. >> during the presidential campaign this year, governor christie g-gol goff over senatoo for repeating himself to the debate. in your book, you say when i

start boring myself to tears i know that i am getting to drive that message home in other words you think freedom is a good thing. >> host: >> guest: i'm probably one of the few people in america that she was doing the right thing. i think that politics is repetition and if you are trying to drive a message, you have to repeat it a lot to make the point. i tried to do that in the meetings we have with our coff coffee. one time isn't enough. you can count of about three fourths of them not paying attention the first time, so if you are really trying to make a point, repetition is a good thing. i want to ask the period of time during that time. after three terms were finally elected the number two position in the senate was november 13, 2010 a month later trent lott went to a birthday party and said something about thurmond

and the suddenly he had to resign as the leader of the position you always wanted. you would seem to be the logical person to move up but senator bill frist took the position. and then at the end of january coming t,you had triple bypass , so whatt was your range of emotions during the two and a half months? my feeling was i probably never was going to have an opportunity to be the leader of my party in the senate because i was ten years older thanpp bill frist. fortunately the health problem i had worked out fine, but i have doubts during that period and i've just been bypassed by somebody ten years younger than i am and had a significant health problem, so you know, i wondered if i would ever have an opportunity to have the job that i had been hoping to have for

quitee a while. so it was a challenging period but like other challenges, i don't want to make my story seem all that unique. if you just don't quit and just keep looking the chances are you'll get to where you are headed. i always tell students i spent a lot of time with [inaudible] we all have speed bumps and setbacks. or be defeated by them or do we just shake it off and keep on going, so i got my second chance and phil decided to leave the senate and i got to be the leader of the party that i wanted to be but then there was another disappointment. it wasn't the majority leader, it was the minority leader. >> host: and you gave to blame for some of to republican on republican violence. you talk in your book about it

the politics of futile gesture. what do you mean by that? >> guest: something like waiting to be shut down the government to defund obamacare. that is a futile gesture. obama is in the white house obviously obama is going to sign such a bill. the politics of the futile gesture is a way of describing tactical maneuvers that have no chance of success that only itvide the party. that has been a challenge. it's been a bigger challenge in the house of representatives than in the senate is only a couple of people in the senate that have that kind of approach. but it has been a challenge and on the outside i know you saw with the actions of the senate conservatives. the way we do with that on the outside is to be an, simply to defeat him in the primaries and then you don't have a nominee that comes into the senate who first ofed all when the second

comes to the senate with that kind of mentality taking our jobs is to throw stones every day and never achieve anything. >> one of the disadvantages is the search that you'd like to deliver which is as the republican majority is an accomplisheaccomplishment that d as some republicans going around saying it's not and even presidential candidates saying it's not which makes it harder to elect a republican president and keep. >> it's not just about messaging. i mean we all want to do things for our country. no matter what our backgrounds or i i think virtually not everybody that virtually everybody comes here wanting to actually accomplish things for our country. and you have to deal with this with the government you have. barack obama, whether i like it or not got elected. he's been there for eight years and to suggest that we ought to spend 100% of the time simply

fighting s with him rather than try to look for some other thing that we can agree on that would make progress in the country always struck me as absurd. >> host: why did you decide to write about now? now? >> guest: i think it was becoming thene t majority leade. after all these years i called it the long game. it certainly didn't happen overnight. i thought it was a time in which the senate needed to be operated differently that it was a pivotal point for the senate and i think that is the reason why i chose this particular time. >> host: if you were the king and there was one wall that you could pass, what would it be? >> i think i would fix the entitlement eligibility problem. the one issue that can sink the country is the unsustainable current way medicare and social

security are currently crafted his unsustainable. it's the one thing that can completely take the country. >> host: senators have a weekly prayer breakfast and we don't talk much about that for tom daschle that had he to her e the majority leader said something stuck in my mind. that stuck in my mind. he reminded us he said he often thing is he wishes he had prized even more than he did the power he had when he had it in other words he was saying take advantage of this incredible accidental power that you have. you ever think about that? >> guest: yes and all the majorities are fleeting and depending upon what the american people decide this november, i could be the minority leader next year and the majority yposition does present a real opportunity even anybody like the senate which is very difficult to make function.

there are advantages to setting up the agenda and what we call the writer first recognition way we would like to go and you don't know how long that is lasting. you don't want to miss the opportunity to make the country better and you have to deal with the government you have. i wish obama was not president, but he is. >> host: we have three or four minutes left and i want tobo gie you the chance to answer a question. the question senator kennedy got was about encouraging the teaching of american history in our schools so our children cans grow up learning what it means to be an american and i think those teachers when they come onto the senate floor early in the day when a senator can do that and they go to the basket e best contract webster's desk of different desks and invariably one asked me the question i want to ask you and this is my last question. they say senator, what message

would you like for us to take back to our students about the united states senate and the future of our country? >> i think that the senate has been the indispensable legislative body because that is the place things have sorted out, the place but only rarely does the majority get things exactly their own way. the place where stability can occur, and most people obviously don't think that. and in an era in which everybody wants instant gratification come if you are looking for instantst gratification for perfection, the senate would not be a good ceplace for you. >> host: at a time when many americans are not optimistic about our country's future, what would you want those teachers told her students about their

future in this country? >> guest: i think because of our woeful ignorance of american history we always think the current. that we are in is different than others. we have had nothing like the civil war. co.. we haven't had a single instance where a congressman from south carolina came over and almost beat to death the senator from massachusetts. america has had plenty of tough challenges, world wars, depressions. this is a great country. we are going to deal with whatever our current problems are and move onto another level. i'm just as optimistic as i ever was that this generation is going toio leave behind a better america than our parents left behind for us. >> host: that is an optimistic message for the kid that had polio and overcame it and set his sights to be in the united states senate, made it and became the majority leader after

about 50 years of keeping his eye on the ball. national guitarist used to say in this life you have to be careful where you aim because you are likely to get their. senator mitch mcconnell did. thank you very much for talkingg with us. booktv covers book fairs and festivals around the country. here's what's coming up.

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